Does a location being "touristy" diminish the value of photographing it?

GRHazelton · Jul 30, 2018

Vaughn said:
to continue from jnanian...and if I see it, I do not always need to get it onto film. Some of my best photographs are images I have seen but never made, but I enjoy them all the same.

Quite. Some 25 years ago the Monarch butterflies made a rest stop on their migration in a field near my house. I didn't go back to the house for my camera. I somehow knew that I could never capture the sense of wonder I felt, nor the beauty of thousands of butterflies festooning the asters and goldenrod blooms. I can revisit the scene whenever I wish....

jamesaz · Jul 30, 2018

To OP: There are interesting things, lots of them, to photograph in Jerome. You just have to look. In Jerome it also has to do with heat, parking and verticality.
Perhaps it also has something to do with the exotic-ness of a place. Several years ago I saw some framed photos of Sonoran desert landscapes and cactus and such on the wall of a gallery in Portland. They were priced and selling well. I would not have looked at them twice but that may be due to me living in the place they were taken. (When I did custom color printing in the late 70's/early 80's the joke was 'desert sunset 328B') It is difficult, for me at least, to see something or someplace in a new way if I've been there and photographed it many times.

removed account4 · Jul 30, 2018

jtk said:
This post caused panic. Speaking for oneself is sometimes discouraged.

no one is panicking, and sadly you seem to be the person in thread who likes to insult people who
dont' agree with you. you might want to review photrio's TOS personal attacks on this website are discouraged.

Sirius Glass · Jul 31, 2018

jnanian said:
no one is panicking, and sadly you seem to be the person in thread who likes to insult people who
dont' agree with you. you might want to review photrio's TOS personal attacks on this website are discouraged.

Careful John, you might scare him away and then what would we do?

Alan Edward Klein · Jul 31, 2018

Vaughn said:
I have to admit that my artist-in-residence (AIR) in Zion National Park for all of last April was a unique situation to be in. A very busy 'touristy' spot...presently in the top five national parks for visitors/year...and during Spring Break. A small Park with most visitors concentrated in a narrow long Zion Canyon, with some spread along the road east in the Checkerboard Mesa area.

Making visitor contacts was part of the AIR job description...20 hours/week requested...so several times with my 100 yr old 5x7 on the tripod over my shoulder I'd hike on busy trails and randomly set the camera up and let tourists look through it...sometimes I would even take a photo. Several hundred kids and adults from around the world looked thru my cameras...kinda neat. I screwed up several times with that many people around, but I usually realized it at the time and could re-shoot. Engaging the tourists while photographing was a rewarding experience.

However I just developed the last of the Zion film (some rolls of 120 and 12 5x7 sheets). I must admit, out of the all the negs, I don't remember any with people purposefully in them. Undoubtably there will be someone somewhere in my images that might be seen with a glass...and the shuttles that go up and down Zion Canyon ended up in a couple of photos. There's a dead Big Horn Sheep in a couple the 5x7s. I am most interested in the light reflecting off the landscape and being in beautiful and interesting places. But I also have a decade+ series of 8x10 platinum prints of my boys growing up in our local redwoods -- my three young tourists, with me as the tour guide.

Silver gelatin contact print, 5x7
Valley Tour, Yosemite Valley, ca 1993
and
Single-Transfer Carbon Print, 8x10
Three Boys, Three Snags, New Years Day 2008
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, CA

I like Three Boys reminds me of pictures from early 1900's. .

removed account4 · Jul 31, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
Careful John, you might scare him away and then what would we do?

yeah i know SG , just attempting to be civil, its really hard!

Sirius Glass · Jul 31, 2018

jnanian said:
yeah i know SG , just attempting to be civil, its really hard!

Please see my PM.

removed account4 · Aug 1, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
Please see my PM.

got it, thanks !

jtk · Aug 9, 2018

mooseontheloose said:

Why not?

Click to expand...

OK. Have you gone to Disneyland just to photograph? Was that productive?

I've gone there with kids and I've also photographed there for the graphic design firm that did most of Disney's signage (sounds like small business, but the design firm billed a couple hundred thousand). However I'm not interested enough in vacationers to invest the hundreds necessary to go to Anaheim (of all places), spend a night or two, and feed myself on OK food, hoping that's available anywhere in the area.

Don't know how Bill Owens (Suburbia) managed the legal risk of photographing other people's kids. I'd want to know how to manage that risk before snapping at Disneyland.

http://www.billowens.com/exhibitions

http://www.billowens.com/photographs/suburbia-c

Vaughn · Aug 9, 2018

jtk said:
...
Don't know how Bill Owens (Suburbia) managed the legal risk of photographing other people's kids. I'd want to know how to manage that risk before snapping at Disneyland.

http://www.billowens.com/exhibitions

http://www.billowens.com/photographs/suburbia-c

Interesting! I am heading down to Hayward (home of Bill Owens) this weekend to give a friend a hand hanging a show and prep for its opening. It honors Bill's 80th birthday and is called, Altamont to America: Bill Owens and the Legacy of Suburbia. Dead Link Removed

If you happen do be in the Bay Area on the 18th, you could ask him yourself at the opening. He was working for the local paper. He was at every important function, event, tragedy, big local sport game, celebration of note, political gathering and so forth. He was well known, their neighbor, their recorder of their history. They invited him into their homes and let him photograph their otherwise private environments.

It is going to be an incredible show.

On the original topic, sometimes going to tourisity places, one ends up realizing the tourists are part of the scene.

Valley Tours
Yosemite National Park
5x7 camera, 210mm, contact print

mooseontheloose · Aug 10, 2018

Vaughn said:
On the original topic, sometimes going to tourisity places, one ends up realizing the tourists are part of the scene.

Valley Tours
Yosemite National Park
5x7 camera, 210mm, contact printView attachment 205684

Great image Vaughn! It reminds me of a small show I went to years ago that was about the Alhambra in Granada, but it was just the backdrop to the main subject of the photos: tourists. That was the first time I realized that you could do more at tourist locations than just photograph the main sites.

mooseontheloose · Aug 10, 2018

jtk said:
OK. Have you gone to Disneyland just to photograph? Was that productive?

I haven’t been to Disneyland yet, but I’ve been to other theme parks, and yes, I enjoy photographing there. I’m not a professional photographer, so all my photos are unpaid. I look for interesting locations or situations, and theme parks can provide both. I wouldn’t travel somewhere specifically for the park, but if I was in the area it would be on my list of places to visit.

Also, not all theme parks are in the US, and not all countries/people have the same reactions to photography. Here in Japan you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would object to photos taken even of their kids.*

*There is an exception to this, not for kids, but for vendors in highly touristed areas here in Kyoto. Tourism is exploding here (it’s off the charts a - 250% increase over the past five years) and locals can’t really deal with the massive numbers of rude or inconsiderate (foreign) tourists. So now the signs are up in many places saying ‘no photo’.

Vaughn · Aug 10, 2018

mooseontheloose said:
Great image Vaughn! ...

Thanks. I was set up to photograph across road over to the creek, and as I was setting up these tours would pass by -- so I though, why not -- it was more interesting the the actual scene I was going to photograph.

Kyoto was quite nice in December, tourist-wise -- but I imagine New Years was a mess.

Bob Carnie · Aug 10, 2018

Vaughn said:
Interesting! I am heading down to Hayward (home of Bill Owens) this weekend to give a friend a hand hanging a show and prep for its opening. It honors Bill's 80th birthday and is called, Altamont to America: Bill Owens and the Legacy of Suburbia. Dead Link Removed

If you happen do be in the Bay Area on the 18th, you could ask him yourself at the opening. He was working for the local paper. He was at every important function, event, tragedy, big local sport game, celebration of note, political gathering and so forth. He was well known, their neighbor, their recorder of their history. They invited him into their homes and let him photograph their otherwise private environments.

It is going to be an incredible show.

On the original topic, sometimes going to tourisity places, one ends up realizing the tourists are part of the scene.

Valley Tours
Yosemite National Park
5x7 camera, 210mm, contact printView attachment 205684

When Matthew Plexman showed at Hayward, Bill Owens came to the show and actually gave him a signed book, Matthew was very impressed wit Bill

Vaughn · Aug 10, 2018

I am sorry I missed Matthew Plexman show...though I have been involved with the timber industry in one way or another since I was a tree planter back in the 70s. The images would have been familiar.

mooseontheloose · Aug 10, 2018

Vaughn said:
Thanks. I was set up to photograph across road over to the creek, and as I was setting up these tours would pass by -- so I though, why not -- it was more interesting the the actual scene I was going to photograph.

Kyoto was quite nice in December, tourist-wise -- but I imagine New Years was a mess.

I think the best time to be in Kyoto (and Japan in general) is from early Dec to mid-March. It's the only real low season we have now. Yes, transport is busy at New Years, but it's mostly just Japanese going home for the holidays. The holiday is very family-oriented so not a lot of people come here to party, and since a lot of things close down for a few days, it's not great for tourism either.

Does a location being "touristy" diminish the value of photographing it?

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